My video from Peaty’s Steel City Downhill race, that happened on Saturday. It’s a little ‘rough around the edges’ in places and everything below the open section was shot in the last 5 minutes of the race, but other than that I’m fairly happy with it. Pictures and words to follow. The race photos are also available to purchase on Roots & Rain, which also has the results:

This post has been a while coming for various reasons and it’s mostly all been said elsewhere a few weeks back. But I will say, that it was a great event with plenty of local familiar faces, either riding, organising, media-ing (yeah I know) or just coming along to watch.

(THE) Alex Rankin (who made the Earthed series of MTB films) was filming for Freecaster along with a motley band of local video men (including myself), with a range of video cameras from camcorders and DSLRs to a GoPro helmet-cam in use as a zip-line camera. Alex explained the sort of thing he was after from us and gave out plenty of tips and advice while we walked up the track before the race runs. Having felt quite unprepared and like I was winging it for a fair bit of the race run filming (I’m used to having Saturday to scout the track and then know where I want to be for the Sunday race runs), I was very pleased with how most of it came out. A fair bit of my footage went into the official Freecaster video, including the novelty-tree-shot (which took about 5 minutes of shivering and hoping the tree would hold while waiting for a rider to come), so that was good.

After the race many headed straight to the Showroom cinema for Progression, Alex’s special edit for ShAFF of his Sprung and Earthed series of MTB films. There were plenty of laughs (mainly at Peaty crashing) and vintage footage from the early days of Downhill, it gave an idea of where the sport has come from and got to: its Progression – or, failing that, plenty of drunk racers to laugh at!

Following the film came Rob Warner ‘interviewing’ Steve Peat, I say ‘interviewing’ because, in classic Warner style, he hadn’t actually prepared anything and just relied on the audience for questions.

“Yes, you with the straight arm.”

“Josh Bryceland has just come in wearing a cap he thinks makes him look ghetto and cool.”

I think this actually worked better, with Warner providing some great banter and entertainment, while Peaty thought up good and in-depth answers. It was a laugh a minute, on a par with any stand up comic’s show, but also very interesting at the same time – a great end to a great day of mountain biking!

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